1. Field of the Invention
The invention is related to a device in an integrated circuit, and more particularly, to a device in an integrated circuit for protecting the integrated circuit design.
2. Description of the Prior Art
As outsourcing integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing becomes an economic trend, most IC design companies outsource their IC manufacturing to third party manufactures. However doing so may increase the difficulty of protecting the intellectual property (IP) of IC designs and may cause tremendous loss to the IC design companies. Further, pirated ICs are more likely to be defective, which might put people's lives in danger if those pirated ICs are used in critical equipment. Moreover, national security might be breached if ICs used in military equipment are reverse-engineered by potential enemies.
One way to reverse-engineer ICs may be through decapsulation (DECAP), which is common in related industry. Therefore, it is important to figure out a way to protect ICs from being copied or at least to increase difficulty for others to reverse-engineer ICs in order to protect IP of IC designs.